This segment of Bartemeyer’s Bits is an example of the information revealed by spending countless hours in finding and talking to people who were involved with creating our Pontiac Fiero. Unfortunately, there are no pictures on this subject to present. Over the last ten years, I have heard several variations of a story within the Fiero Community and internet about V8 Fieros that were built by GM. Some of the stories had gotten pretty far stretched. While interviewing former engineers over the past several years, this subject was always mentioned to see what the answer would be. After hearing the same account from three different people who were working on the Fiero project, I feel confident that the information is fairly accurate. The most vivid account actually came from the truck driver who delivered the car from Pontiac Engineering to Milford Proving Grounds and watched the incident unfold right from his cab.

The most common variation of the stories heard is the infamous Corvette versus Fiero scenario. The story of a Fiero out running a Corvette is something that happened before pilot Fieros were built. Spring of 1982 is when this incident occurred. Chevrolet was giving the press a first look at the new C-4 Corvette at Milford Proving Grounds on the Black Lake. Fiero Engineering was at Milford performing structural rigidity tests on the space frame. Pontiac Motorsports was testing an experimental V8 for racing somewhere in the 4.0 liter range. Through a joint effort, Pontiac Motorsports worked with Fiero Engineering to mount the V8 in to the Fiero space frame so that both could combine both costs and benefit from real world usage. Fiero Engineering was testing the frame rigidity and reliability of the driveline and cradle mount points affected by the shock loads associated with severe manual transmission usage. This is the type of business Hulki was involved with in hopes of finding funding for the Fiero by convincing other departments to go jointly on various engineering projects.

While the engineering team was out beating the snot out of the Fiero, the rivalry between the two divisions found the two cars running next each other on the Black Lake. The problem that occurred was that there was the automotive press and Chevrolet management present while this was going on. Not really knowing; or caring about what was really happening, the Chevrolet people saw the commuter car proposed Fiero outperforming the expensive state-of-the-art Corvette and put an immediate halt to the incident. Corporate had Hulki directed to the main downtown office for explaining; as this meeting was taking place, the car was destroyed before the engine even got cold. There was never another V8 Fiero built at GM after that point. Pontiac focused their efforts at the SD-4 in several variations including the quad overhead cam version. The fully race prepared versions used in the GTP series racecars capped off in the 650 horsepower range.